


Sweet Dreams Aren't Made For Me

by alien_lord



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dreams, Foreshadowing, M/M, Nightmares, i ship them but they're bros, maybe more than bros, night terror, semi platonic bro love, sweating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 14:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11899767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alien_lord/pseuds/alien_lord
Summary: Sirius Black is plagued by nightmares and spends his nights pacing and thinking. James is worried about Sirius, and tries to make him feel better.





	Sweet Dreams Aren't Made For Me

Sirius Black had been having nightmares, again. When he woke up with gasp, his hair was plastered to the back of his neck, covered in sweat. He laid still in bed for a few minutes, feeling the cool sensation of the sheets pressed to his sweat covered chest. Sirius was used to the nightmares at this point, they happened basically every night. Sweat ran down the side of his neck, and his pillow was damp with sweat. 

Every single night for weeks now, he’d been dreaming the same dream. The dream was while he was in the form of his animagus, a murder took place, and while it wasn’t him that did it, it was a real wolf, everyone hunted him down, trying to beat him to death. He ran, and ran, until his paws ached, but it was no good. Everywhere he turned, there was someone’s face that he knew, shaming him for the crime that he didn’t commit. It was horrifying. He cried in the dream, but he couldn’t turn back to his human form, and no one could understand him. It left him feeling mute and helpless. Even James was there in the dream, telling him that he was disappointed, and he didn’t know why he’d done it. 

It was a horrifying dream, leaving him feeling hopeless and trapped. He rested one of his forearms over his eyes as he took deep breaths. He didn’t even want to go to sleep, Sirius was worried that the dreams would just come back immediately. 

It was his last year at Hogwarts, and he wondered if the stress of leaving school had something to do with the dreams he was having. The rest of his friends were fine, or so they said, but he felt like he’d notice if they were having nightmares. Especially since he spent most of the night lying awake, pacing the dorm room, or sitting at the window looking down over the lake, hoping that the sun would hurry up and rise. At least if he napped during class it was brief, and he couldn’t dream. 

He wanted to go and ask a teacher about it, maybe they could send him to the nurse, and she could give him something for it. There were spells that James had offered to perform that would just knock him out, but the idea of being trapped in sleep didn’t appeal to Sirius either. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he let his feet rest on the cold stone floors. He wasn’t really in the mood to spend the next few hours pacing around the dorm room, but sometimes that was the only thing that cleared his mind enough that he could get back to sleep. His muscles tensed in his legs as he thought about the last night he’d spent pacing around the dorm, his feet were cold just thinking about it. 

Brushing a sweaty lock of hair off his forehead, he stood up, getting ready to take up his night time ritual of pacing. A few minutes into his pacing, James woke up, rolling over and squinting at him blearily. James and Sirius were similar looking, but while Sirius was leaner, with higher cheekbones, James was starting to build a more adult form, and his face was rounder, starting to mature a little, and thicken. Sirius was lean, his adult face maturing, but with more sharp edges, and angles than James had. 

“Are you having nightmares again, man?” He asked, propping himself up on one elbow, squinting out into the dark room. James was worried about Sirius, but even more than Remus or Peter, because Sirius was his best friend. He felt helpless, and stressed that Sirius was having nightmares every night. James hadn’t been having nightmares but he was stressed about leaving Hogwarts. He wanted to start his life with Lily, but he was worried he wasn’t mature enough yet. 

Sirius shrugged a little in the dark, and James barely saw, the moonlight seeping through the big window in the dorm room just illuminating his body. “I’ll just walk it off,” he answered his best friend. “It worked last night”. That was a lie, but Sirius didn’t want James to worry. Last night, after he’d woken, he’d simply paced till the sun rose, pretending to have just woken up when the others got up. He slept all morning during charms and transfiguration, which made McGonagall chide him after class. She was worried that he wasn’t going to graduate with the marks he needed to become an auror. 

Sirius was more preoccupied with the coming war with Voldemort to be worried about his marks.  
With a loud sigh, and a shake of his head, he ran a hand through his ruffled, curly hair. “Just get in bed with me, man.” James laughed a little, “Nightmares don’t scare me, I’ll fight them off.” 

Sirius blinked in surprise. “Are you sure?” He didn’t want to bother James, or even worse, wake him up screaming. It embarrassed him. There was nothing he could do to fight off nightmares, no matter how tough he was. 

“It’s not like you don’t wake me up every time you shriek, over there-“ James waved one hand at Sirius’s bed. “You’re like seven feet away from me. Just get in my bed, maybe you’ll sleep.” And with that, he flopped back down on the mattress, moving over to the edge to give Sirius space.  
“You know I love you, bro-“ James told Sirius as his best friend climbed into bed. Sirius grinned, and answered, “I love you too, man”. It was true. There was no one in the world he loved as much as James. 

Sirius grinned, and climbed into his best friend’s bed. Pulling the blankets up to his chest, there was a comfortable amount of room for them both, and a nice amount of blanket. James fell asleep, and after he dozed off, rolled over, and threw his arm over Sirius. Sirius didn’t mind, it made him feel safe, and he was comfortable under James’s arm. 

It wasn’t long before Sirius’s eyes started to drift closed, and he lost himself to sleep, thinking about how lucky he as to have James as his best friend. He’d never betray James, and he knew that Peter and Remus would never betray him either. He didn’t need to worry about the dreams, they were just dreams. He just needed to worry about graduating school, and going forward to fight Voldemort and defend his friends.


End file.
